A. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the tagging of audiovisual content of a program, such as analog or digital motion pictures that are transmitted over cable, or video transmitted over the Internet. More particularly, it pertains to a viewer-operated apparatus for tagging individual scenes of the audiovisual program so that it can later be replayed with selected scenes being omitted or replaced by others.
B. Description of the Prior Art
Presently, many video programs have ratings that can be used by viewers to determine whether they would like to play the programs, or whether they would allow others (such as children or adolescents) to play them. These types of ratings are also becoming available for TV shows, games, and other audiovisual programs. Programs broadcast over the Internet may be filtered or otherwise restricted using on-line filtering services, and set-top boxes and TVs with V-CHIP content filtering technology also exist for this purpose.
As an improvement to current technology, it has been suggested that rating codes be provided for individual segments, or scenes, of programs.
Automated playing devices would then be able to seamlessly eliminate segments with selected content, and/or substitute other segments with acceptable content if such segments are available. Commonly assigned co-pending application Ser. No. 09/479,819 filed Jan. 7, 2000, entitled “Content Control of Broadcast Programs” and incorporated herein by reference, discloses a personal video recorder that receives and stores a broadcast program with each scene being tagged with a content rating. Parameters for acceptability of content are designated by viewers, and the appropriate scenes are played as a seamless continuous program. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,987,211 and 6,208,805 to Abecassis discloses an apparatus which records a program on a disk and filters content according to viewer preferences. A viewer is shown only the segments having acceptable content. A parent has the ability to review a program and tag unacceptable scenes. The apparatus then omits the unacceptable scenes when the program is played.
A major disadvantage of all of these systems is that, whether a universal rating is assigned to a whole program, or ratings are assigned to each of a program's individual scenes, the ratings still reflect a limited number of categories accepted by the public at large, industry-wide guidelines or the opinions of an editor. Thus, they fail to reflect inherent differences in the filtering categories of individual viewers due to many factors such as geographic location, level of education, income, religious and moral beliefs, etc., factors that meaningfully affect a person's views and preferences for what kind of programs and content they, or their children, should view.